The security experts alarm that a new cryptovirus called [email protected] Virus is on the loose. This infection is a typical file-encrypting Ransomware, which can take hostage of the files you keep on your computer and ruthlessly blackmail you to pay ransom if you want to release them. Unfortunately, this type of malware is growing at a rapid pace and new and more sophisticated versions of it keep coming up every day. Our “How to remove” team has recently received many messages from infected users who ask us to help them deal with [email protected] Virus and somehow restore their encrypted data. Therefore, this entire page is dedicated to this Ransomware and all the possible methods that can help you remove it and restore some of your files. In the next lines, you will find more information about the so-called “cyber blackmailing” tactics and their specifics, the tricky infection methods that the Ransomware uses, and a neatly organized removal guide with instructions on how to detect and eliminate the cryptovirus from your system. We hope that you will find all the details below useful and they will help you handle the infection and eventually minimize some of your losses.

[email protected] Virus is a Ransomware threat, specially created to blackmail its victims for the access to their data. It does that by applying a secret encryption algorithm to all the files, found on the infected computer, and keeps them hostage until the victims pay a certain amount of money as ransom. This scheme can be seen as the new online form of “kidnapping” where the target is the users’ data and they are required to pay for a decryption key to save it and access it again. In the recent years, the Ransomware is quickly turning into a very profitable “business model” among the criminal circles. This type of malware brings the hackers millions in ransom payments from the desperate people, who submit to their demands in an attempt to regain the access to their encrypted files.

There are many ways to catch a Ransomware infection. A very common method that the hackers use to infect the unsuspecting online users is to pack the harmful payload inside a Trojan horse and this way secretly break through the system’ security. Such dangerous combos can be transmitted via emails, spam messages, harmful attachments, malicious websites or virus inflicted pages, misleading links or ads, torrents, shady installers and more. Unfortunately, there are hardly any signs, which may help the users distinguish the threat from a harmless content, that’s why they usually get infected by clicking on the transmitter without knowing what a dangerous malware it contains.

Not being able to use your files can be really frustrating. Not to mention the shock from the disturbing ransom note that appears on the screen and asks you to pay a ransom. However, under no circumstances should you get panicked and act impulsively without carefully researching the Ransomware and all the possible alternatives to deal with it. The hackers, behind [email protected] Virus, may use different types of emotional attacks, short deadlines, threatening messages or what not, but these are only meant to scare you and make you pay faster. The thing is that once you pay, the crooks are more likely to disappear with the money and you may never hear from them again. In this case, you will not only lose your money, but you may remain with your encrypted data without any decryption key. That’s why our advice for you is not to pay the ransom unless you at least try all the other options that are available. First, we suggest you give a try to the free instructions in the removal guide below and remove [email protected] Virus from your system. Then, you can safely use some file backups, if you keep any, and restore your data from there. It is a good idea to check your external drives, cloud storage or emails and extract some data from there too. Also, you can try our file restoration instructions and keep an eye on our page with free decryptors because there we post all the free solutions, which can help you bring some of your files back. Another option is to seek for some specialized software, which can help you deal with [email protected] Virus. You can also contact an expert in Ransomware cases and ask for assistance to handle the infection. If there is really no other way, only then you may think about submitting to the hackers’ demands, but bear in mind that this course of action cannot guarantee you complete recovery and the risk is all yours to take.

Prior to starting to execute the steps from the guide, we advise you to either bookmark this page or open it on a separate device since throughout the process of completing the guide, you might need to exit your browser.

1: Using Safe Mode

Before beginning to troubleshoot the issue, you are advised to enter Safe Mode on your PC. If you do not know how to do that, use this guide on how to enter Safe Mode.

2: Spotting the process

Open your Task Manager using the Ctrl + Shift + Esc key combination. Next, go to the processes tab and carefully look through the list for any shady entries. Usually, malicious processes will be consuming large amounts of CPU and RAM and will either have no description or will have a suspicious-looking one.

Once you identify the virus’ process, right-click on it and select Open File Location. Delete everything in the folder that opens if you are sure that the process was malicious. If you are not sure, contact us in the comments.

Go back to the Task Manager and end the potentially harmful process.

3: Hosts file IP’s

Go to your start menu and in the search field, paste the following address: notepad %windir%/system32/Drivers/etc/hosts. Select the first result and look at the bottom of the newly opened notepad file. See if there are any IP’s below “Localhost” and tell us in the comments if there were any IP addresses.

4: System Configuration Startup Programs

Type System Configuration in the Windows search bar and open the first result. Go to the Startup tab and take a look at the list of startup programs (on Windows 10, the Startup programs can be seen in the Startup Section of the Task Manager). If any of them look shady or have unknown manufacturer or a manufacturer with a sketchy name, uncheck those entries and click on OK.

5: Registry

Open the Run window (WinKey + R), type regedit and press Enter. Once the Registry Editor opens, press Ctrl + F and type the name of the virus. Select Find Next and delete whatever gets found that has the virus’ name. Do that with all search results.

6: Deleting potential virus files

Open the Start Menu and separately type each of the following locations: %AppData% %LocalAppData% %ProgramData% %WinDir% %Temp% . Open each of those folders and sort their contents by date. Delete the most recent files and folders. When you open the Temp folder, delete everything in it.